local file question

[Tom Sgouros]

Thank you Herb, that's what I was after. And I understand your point about
updates, but I prefer to make my choices when I understand the options
rather than because one of them remains clouded in mystery.

Thanks!

 -Tom

On Mon, Oct 23, 2023 at 12:42 PM Herbert Schulz <herbs2 at mac.com> wrote:

>
>
> > On Oct 23, 2023, at 8:39 AM, Tom Sgouros <tsgouros at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > Hi Herb:
> >
> > By "my files" I mean the packages and fonts I've written and accumulated
> over the past thirty years of using LaTeX. Yes, it seems kind of improbable
> to me, too.
> >
> > The problem with a link is that by the next time I upgrade or change
> machines, I'll forget what it's doing there. I was hoping that someone here
> would have some insight into how the "~" comes to have a different meaning
> inside the texlive texmf.cnf than it does in the shell. Why is one
> "/Users/tom" and the other is "/Users/tom/Library" and can I change that?
> >
> > Thanks,
> >
> >  -Tom
> >
> > On Mon, Oct 23, 2023 at 8:54 AM Herbert Schulz <herbs2 at mac.com> wrote:
> >
> >
> > > On Oct 22, 2023, at 10:22 PM, Tom Sgouros <tsgouros at gmail.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > Hello all:
> > >
> > > I recently installed TexLive 2023 on my Mac (Macos13.2), and it seems
> like variables like "TEXMFHOME = ~/texmf" defined in the system-wide
> texmf.cnf resolve to /Users/tom/Library/texmf instead of "Users/tom/texmf".
> How can I make them resolve to where my files are?
> > >
> > > Thank you,
> > >
> > >  -Tom
> >
> > Howdy,
> >
> > What do you mean by `my files'? The personal tree is really meant for
> peersonal packages and possibly personal fonts. You can put your source
> files anywhere.
> >
> > One thing you can do is to make a symbolic link in ~/Library to your
> files: run
> >
> > ln -s ~/texmf ~/Library/texmf
> >
> > which will produce a small file that points to your files.
> >
> > There are other things you can do but I suggest this is the simplest.
> >
> > Good Luck,
> >
> > Herb Schulz
> > herbs2 at mac.com
>
> Howdy,
>
> It's possible to override the default. For the TeX Live installed by
> MacTeX there is a file in the root of the yearly distribution
> (/usr/local/texlive/2023/ for TeX Live 2023) called texmf.cnf that contains
> overrides including
>
> TEXMFHOME = ~/Library/texmf
>
> and you could change that. Note: those files are owned by root so you need
> to use `sudo` when editing the file.
>
> HOWEVER, I don't recommend doing that because if you update to next year's
> TeX Live the override file will be back to the changes used by MacTeX and I
> can almost guarantee the change will be forgotten and that happens more
> often than changing computers, etc.
>
> Good Luck,
>
> Herb Schulz
> herbs2 at mac.com
>
>
>
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